The Shilla Duty Free (Shilla) is to close its Jeju downtown store for 10 days this month to help fight the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The store will be closed on all weekends this month and also on 15 April (the 21^st National Assembly Election Day) and 30 April (the Buddha’s birthday).

According to Shilla, the reason for the closures is the sharp drop in tourists visiting Jeju Island due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Last year, an average of more than 3,000 people entered Jeju Island daily through the International Airport. Currently, all international flights to and from Jeju are suspended, except for Spring Airlines which is temporarily operating a return flight to China once a week.

The retailer’s Jeju International Airport store is also temporarily closed due to the suspension of most international flights to and from the island.

Shilla has already reduced the trading hours of its Jeju downtown store on two occasions. On 7 February, the retailer announced it was reducing business hours by 30 minutes following a temporary shutdown. The shutdown followed the Jeju provincial government’s announcement that a Chinese customer visiting the store had returned to China having contracted the virus. On March 12, Shilla cut trading time by a further hour.

The retailer said it would assess the impact of the Covid-19 crisis before deciding when business hours would return to normal.